While it should be entertaining to see how Schlock does with the new tech, I'm still wondering why the frag suits make sense. I want to give it the benefit of the doubt, but sending a heavy in only for them to shed their armor doesn't quite make sense. If you're going to do that in a hot entry, why not lead with drones to begin with and then send in the heavies?

Last edited by Nemoricus on Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Because drones are easily hacked if self-propelled, jammed if controlled from another ship, and too stupid without active control to know the difference between a civilian and a soldier who simply doesn't have a gun.

They go in heavy, they secure the point, THEN THEY TURN THEIR HEAVY ARMOR INTO A *TEMPORARY* FRONTLINE FIRE BASE while the engineers follow up with the ACTUAL frontline bunker gear.

It's not that hard!

Really, the only reason Elf never put hers back on is because she's an idiot and is not qualified to be a ship captain because of a laundry list of reasons but in this specific case IMPATIENCE.

I'm with StClair. All those arguments ring hollow to me. Drones aren't any easier to hack than if they're part of the suit - if you were really paranoid, you'd have them all autonomous anyway. I mean, if everybody was dead the heavy going all drone-y wouldn't be helpful, and if they AREN'T dead you're still in the same boat, hacking wise. I still don't see how turning your heavy into a crappy bunker is better than just having a heavy, either. At this point you're definitely moving into "Why not have real light tanks?" instead of heavies at all, in addition to "Why don't you just have a rapid-fire drone cannon aiming into the TOE?

I cannot imagine a situation where any of this is better than just having a heavy and cloud of drones/self-propelled cover. Or hey, one of those handy-dandy shield bunkers that we saw last arc.

I'm with StClair. All those arguments ring hollow to me. Drones aren't any easier to hack than if they're part of the suit - if you were really paranoid, you'd have them all autonomous anyway. I mean, if everybody was dead the heavy going all drone-y wouldn't be helpful, and if they AREN'T dead you're still in the same boat, hacking wise. I still don't see how turning your heavy into a crappy bunker is better than just having a heavy, either. At this point you're definitely moving into "Why not have real light tanks?" instead of heavies at all, in addition to "Why don't you just have a rapid-fire drone cannon aiming into the TOE?

I cannot imagine a situation where any of this is better than just having a heavy and cloud of drones/self-propelled cover. Or hey, one of those handy-dandy shield bunkers that we saw last arc.

Tanks are not as mobile, they don't do well in close quarters like boarding actions, the drones are under active control and are much less hack able than if they were remote or SI controlled, which also goes to jamming. Short range jamming is hard to do. The shield bunker is not very portable and is just a giant BOMB that everyone is huddled around should anybody have a breacher round. The only reason they had trouble last arc was their only breacher was a ship to ship warhead.

You go in heavy. You secure the immediate location. You turn your single armor into a pile of portable cover and defensive emplacements for your NON heavies to use, in case the enemy makes a play, you REINFORCE YOUR POSITION with said non heavies, and then you reinforce that position further with the combat engineers who build an actual bunker, after which you suit back up, unless you're an impatient idiot like Elf.

I think there are advantages to the various pieces of armor fragments being independent as well, even in armor mode.

Like, let's get something straight, these are designed to go over the buckyweave, so you don't lose the ability to operate in hard vacuum at all. Nor are you defenseless against weaponized nannies, although the Toughs' almost-certainly milspec-modded REDREO is also good for that.

I think that the fragments being able to separate and hover off the main body is consistent with what we know about Annie plants.

We know it takes more power for more precise control/more loci of gravity, and presumably there is some limitation on how far away a gradient can be produced. In extreme cases you get battleplates burning neutronium to twitch the muscles on Tagon's finger from a few km away. This is also likely the reason that ship drives generate non-uniform fields for locomotion and compensate the gradients with DCI, instead of just generating a single, uniform, low-gradient field.

Logically, deflector shields can output more gravy safely the further away the gravitational end-effector (i.e. "fiddy bit") is from what it's protecting, if what it's protecting can't take high gradiants. Thus, armor plates that float in and out as necessary to deflect things makes some sense.

Tanks not as mobile - Why not? Bigger the power supply, the better in schlock-tech. Psychobear minitanks are basically what I'm talking about here.

Drones are under active control - That's your assumption, and I don't think it's likely to be a good one. If it's just one drone maybe, but that's no better than a human in armour. If it's many, they're mostly autonomous (Set your paul-drones to autonomous mode, remember?).

The shield bunker is not very portable etc - It took a STS missile to stop it. When you start playing at that level things exploding energetically is a given. And it was plenty portable - it flew itself around. Which is the obvious solution for a portable bunker. It was also impenetrable to just about everything, which these 'frag suits' are probably not.

You turn your single armor into a pile of portable cover...- And why don't you just send in cover WITH your heavy? Turning your heavy into a target of opportunity doesn't help your engineers!

I am still not seeing the advantage. Yes, not getting your engineers shot is great, but you're losing the only thing that the heavy was actually providing - a single, hard-to-kill threat who can take significant damage and still return fire. Otherwise you might as well have just dropped in the swarm in the first place.

Tanks not as mobile - Why not? Bigger the power supply, the better in schlock-tech. Psychobear minitanks are basically what I'm talking about here.

Drones are under active control - That's your assumption, and I don't think it's likely to be a good one. If it's just one drone maybe, but that's no better than a human in armour. If it's many, they're mostly autonomous (Set your paul-drones to autonomous mode, remember?).

The shield bunker is not very portable etc - It took a STS missile to stop it. When you start playing at that level things exploding energetically is a given. And it was plenty portable - it flew itself around. Which is the obvious solution for a portable bunker. It was also impenetrable to just about everything, which these 'frag suits' are probably not.

You turn your single armor into a pile of portable cover...- And why don't you just send in cover WITH your heavy? Turning your heavy into a target of opportunity doesn't help your engineers!

I am still not seeing the advantage. Yes, not getting your engineers shot is great, but you're losing the only thing that the heavy was actually providing - a single, hard-to-kill threat who can take significant damage and still return fire. Otherwise you might as well have just dropped in the swarm in the first place.

Fine, you drive a tank around in the corridors of your average Schlockiverse vessel, see how far you get before you start taking chunks out of the ship or your tank. The minitanks were only usable because they were built for Ob'enn, which meant only the VERY SMALLEST of the Toughs could use them. And they're OLD tech at this point.

The drones being under active control is an assumption, yes, but a pretty good one, and even then, they could be autonomous under SUIT control. It's much harder to hack something that only knows what it's highly encrypted quantum communications is telling it to do than something with an onboard brain.

You don't send the cover in with your heavies because they're YOUR HEAVIES. They're already slow. They're powerful. They're your WALKING tanks! You only want an armor column if you're greedy or oure going to be doing something stuck in on the ground, not in a spaceship. That kind of firepower is MASSIVE overkill, and you're going to be doing more damage to the ship than anything else.

Which in this case is a no-no because then they'd really be firing upon an Uuple vessel.

And you just aren't getting it. Yes, you're losing a single, hard to kill target...Which is still only ONE TARGET instead of providing cover for a FIRING LINE.

The first thing soldiers do once they get someplace is they set up a defensible position. This currently means they use makeshift cover or bring in combat engineers while under fire and behind makeshift cover.

This cover COMES WITH the heavies, has its own guns, is self propelled, and is BY DEFINITION heavy armor, possibly with grav shields.

The shield bunker was "portable" - on scales equal to that of a small car. It was the size of the elephant guy. And you can't shoot out of it without timing it's flickers EXACTLY, and it's still a giant bomb. They only had a breacher MISSILE with them back then. Breacher ROUNDS can go in a sniper rifle.

Why you keep saying this when it's patently obvious she didn't need the heavy armor to secure the ship from the pathetic force that held it I simply do not understand.

Because she's impatient, she's an idiot, and she's an impatient idiot. You don't leave your heavy armor behind if you're still expecting resistance. You never know who has a missile and is actually a proper soldier.

You only leave your armor behind when you're suicidally overconfident, or you KNOW the entire place is secure.

You only leave your armor behind when you're suicidally overconfident, or you KNOW the entire place is secure.

See, I agree. This just doesn't line up with what you've been saying to ME.

I guess we're never going to see eye-to-eye on this.

The difference there is that the soldier is STILL BEHIND THEIR ARMOR. Said armor is just now more spread out in tactically advantageous positions. She LEFT HERS BEHIND at the forward base because she's an idiot who wanted to clear the ship by herself.

You only leave your armor behind when you're suicidally overconfident.

or you want to get your Plasgun out

Or as is the case here... you know you're safe to take a walk about in your armor weave.

But she DIDN'T know that. Not for certain. There were several levels of unsecured decks, including the bridge, which she just strolled onto. That's being an IDIOT.

And as for Schlock, even before RED backups he was nearly unkillable by anything short of a plasma cannon, he was justifiably confident. And nobody has ever accused him of being SMART. They DEFINITELY never gave him a goddamned CAPTAINCY for it.

Play Dark Souls, then come back and say how a moment of carelessness can't lead to ruin.

Tell you what, I'll just wait over here for you to come back when she has failed to take this ship in her armored undies.... all the while not worried about all the "Oh noes! But something bad could have happened and that makes everything done teh stupidest things ever!!!!"

Play Dark Souls, then come back and say how a moment of carelessness can't lead to ruin.

Tell you what, I'll just wait over here for you to come back when she has failed to take this ship in her armored undies.... all the while not worried about all the "Oh noes! But something bad could have happened and that makes everything done teh stupidest things ever!!!!"

Just because it worked out doesn't mean it ALWAYS WILL work out. It's stupid for a PROFESSIONAL SOLDIER to assume the area is safe when it has yet to be secured. Especially since SHE IS THE ONE SECURING IT.

That's like saying 'it's easy to win the lottery, all you have to do is buy a ticket!'

She was being careless and stupid, and LUCKILY it worked out because narratively and politically right now for them to lose anybody to this group of speciesist assclowns would be moronic and just plain a bad idea unless you WANTED to lose 80% of your fan base.

She got her captaincy and not a missile in the face because of plot armor and luck.

It didn't work out nearly as well for Murtagh, who WAS acting professionally, with at least two others who were ALSO acting professionally, in armor, while they were clearing and securing a location. Remember when she needed to have her HEAD rebuilt?

Or when Kevyn got shot THROUGH THE HULL of the bait freighter while they were hunting Shufgar. Or his entire team onboard Shufar's ship.

Or to wuzzisname, the comm-slug, in the Zoojack, or those two UNS grunts who got gravied.

Or ANY NUMBER of other times when everyone was confident there was nothing there to hurt them before they had actually secured the place.

EDIT: Sh'vuu was the comm-slug, and in addition, remember just two arcs ago when people were angry that the Toughs weren't prepared with a LIVE MISSILE to fly through their own corridors? Were you one of them? I honestly forget. But there were a lot of people who were mad that the toughs didn't have a spare missile powered and ready to go, apparently just in case they needed to fly one through the corridors and take out boarders. Remember that? Remember how people were yelling about the Toughs being idiots for not being prepared for ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING? Including what they had SPECIFIC PROTOCOLS TO PREVENT that only didn't work because nobody knew that Espees could do what they did?

I'm so glad you know how to write Schlock Mercenary so perfectly. Better than Mr. Taylor, even. When you start writing this story, or any story, I'll be glad to come by and critique. I'll pull no punches. You wouldn't want me to.

I'm not convinced the fragsuit is for wearing when things are tough. It strikes me that the fragsuit is likely second least useful when you're actually wearing it. Second, only because it's least useful when you leave it in the arms locker.She left the components of her fragsuit behind, but that doesn't mean they weren't still doing the job to which she put them: That of holding the beachhead.

Should she have entrusted the job of securing the beachhead to a less critical member of the team? Yeah, probably. Who? This is a small unit full of specialists, of which she is one. As Ennesby pointed out to Kevyn, NOT just anyone could have done that particular job. Further, if she was killed or otherwise incapacitated, there wouldn't even be momentary chaos as the chain of command was reorganized. Heck, a case could be made for her being less critical to survive the first ten minutes of this operation than the insect engineer. Her continued presence is FAR less critical to the mission success than is the four-armed figurehead whose ill-considered death threat necessitated taking the ship by boarding party in the first place.

In short. She's a cog. She's not walking around like she's in a rear area. And I value your opinion...somewhat less than I desire getting another chapter before Mr. Taylor reaches burnout.

EDIT: Sh'vuu was the comm-slug, and in addition, remember just two arcs ago when people were angry that the Toughs weren't prepared with a LIVE MISSILE to fly through their own corridors? Were you one of them? I honestly forget. But there were a lot of people who were mad that the toughs didn't have a spare missile powered and ready to go, apparently just in case they needed to fly one through the corridors and take out boarders. Remember that? Remember how people were yelling about the Toughs being idiots for not being prepared for ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING? Including what they had SPECIFIC PROTOCOLS TO PREVENT that only didn't work because nobody knew that Espees could do what they did?

That would be me, Kendrakirai. Though you have it a little wrong. I didn't say a warship should have a missile ready to fire down their own corridors - I said that a warship, particularly a warship that's deployed, should have missiles ready to fire on other ships. Because, ya'know, it's a warship. That could enter combat on virtually no notice. That's not exactly "ready for any possible situation," that's "Ready for the single situation that warships are explicitly built around." I mean, come on. The pirate attack on cindercone wasn't met with "Oh, shoot. It'll take ten minutes to warm up the breechers, our bad."

I also pointed out that the Toughs have umpteen million things that fly, and they could have duct-taped the warhead to any of them and avoided the hand delivery.

sean wrote:

I'm so glad you know how to write Schlock Mercenary so perfectly. Better than Mr. Taylor, even. When you start writing this story, or any story, I'll be glad to come by and critique. I'll pull no punches. You wouldn't want me to.

I generally like schlock mercenary. That doesn't make Howard immune from criticism. Honestly, I suspect it would be gentler if there weren't people here arguing that he can do no wrong, which just drives us to point out the problems more emphatically to try and get our point across.

EDIT: Sh'vuu was the comm-slug, and in addition, remember just two arcs ago when people were angry that the Toughs weren't prepared with a LIVE MISSILE to fly through their own corridors? Were you one of them? I honestly forget. But there were a lot of people who were mad that the toughs didn't have a spare missile powered and ready to go, apparently just in case they needed to fly one through the corridors and take out boarders. Remember that? Remember how people were yelling about the Toughs being idiots for not being prepared for ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING? Including what they had SPECIFIC PROTOCOLS TO PREVENT that only didn't work because nobody knew that Espees could do what they did?

That would be me, Kendrakirai. Though you have it a little wrong. I didn't say a warship should have a missile ready to fire down their own corridors - I said that a warship, particularly a warship that's deployed, should have missiles ready to fire on other ships. Because, ya'know, it's a warship. That could enter combat on virtually no notice. That's not exactly "ready for any possible situation," that's "Ready for the single situation that warships are explicitly built around." I mean, come on. The pirate attack on cindercone wasn't met with "Oh, shoot. It'll take ten minutes to warm up the breechers, our bad."

I also pointed out that the Toughs have umpteen million things that fly, and they could have duct-taped the warhead to any of them and avoided the hand delivery.

sean wrote:

I'm so glad you know how to write Schlock Mercenary so perfectly. Better than Mr. Taylor, even. When you start writing this story, or any story, I'll be glad to come by and critique. I'll pull no punches. You wouldn't want me to.

I generally like schlock mercenary. That doesn't make Howard immune from criticism. Honestly, I suspect it would be gentler if there weren't people here arguing that he can do no wrong, which just drives us to point out the problems more emphatically to try and get our point across.

Why would they keep a functioning missile around when the fighting is happening light-hours away, in a system that is THOROUGHLY seeded with anti-Teraport systems, and all of their other missiles are already out there, deployed? That's like a minelayer keeping one around 'just in case' while in harbor after mining the entirety of the surrounding ocean.

Missiles on the ship light hours from any fighting are as useless as if they were back at Jumpstar Prime. MORE useless, because the ones at Jumpstar can still Teraport onto the OTHER side of the attacking vessels as a pincer attack.

It's leaving a bullet at home in your desk drawer while you're fighting a war on the other side of the planet. It's completely useless except in the SO UNLIKELY AS TO BE IMPOSSIBLE chance that the enemy will somehow find its way into your specific house and try to steal your stereo in the five hours you're in active combat.

I'm so glad you know how to write Schlock Mercenary so perfectly. Better than Mr. Taylor, even. When you start writing this story, or any story, I'll be glad to come by and critique. I'll pull no punches. You wouldn't want me to.

I'm not convinced the fragsuit is for wearing when things are tough. It strikes me that the fragsuit is likely second least useful when you're actually wearing it. Second, only because it's least useful when you leave it in the arms locker.She left the components of her fragsuit behind, but that doesn't mean they weren't still doing the job to which she put them: That of holding the beachhead.

Should she have entrusted the job of securing the beachhead to a less critical member of the team? Yeah, probably. Who? This is a small unit full of specialists, of which she is one. As Ennesby pointed out to Kevyn, NOT just anyone could have done that particular job. Further, if she was killed or otherwise incapacitated, there wouldn't even be momentary chaos as the chain of command was reorganized. Heck, a case could be made for her being less critical to survive the first ten minutes of this operation than the insect engineer. Her continued presence is FAR less critical to the mission success than is the four-armed figurehead whose ill-considered death threat necessitated taking the ship by boarding party in the first place.

In short. She's a cog. She's not walking around like she's in a rear area. And I value your opinion...somewhat less than I desire getting another chapter before Mr. Taylor reaches burnout.

She left the frag suit securing the beachhead...which was currently being amply secured by the combat engineers, who had that place looking like an ACTUAL bunker before she even left. The frag suit pieces were redundant at best, in the way of actual more permanent defenses at worst.

And your argument that she's a cog just makes it even MORE stupid that she got rewarded for disobeying orders multiple times and going about an unsecured area without her heavy armor as assigned with a captaincy.

She isn't a cog, she's COMMAND. And if she were actually command material, she'd not only know better, but follow her own orders. Note that everybody ELSE with suits is wearing theirs, even while the ship IS secured. But Not CAPTAIN Elf, nope! She's too good for that!

Why would they keep a functioning missile around when the fighting is happening light-hours away, in a system that is THOROUGHLY seeded with anti-Teraport systems, and all of their other missiles are already out there, deployed? That's like a minelayer keeping one around 'just in case' while in harbor after mining the entirety of the surrounding ocean.

Missiles on the ship light hours from any fighting are as useless as if they were back at Jumpstar Prime. MORE useless, because the ones at Jumpstar can still Teraport onto the OTHER side of the attacking vessels as a pincer attack.

It's leaving a bullet at home in your desk drawer while you're fighting a war on the other side of the planet. It's completely useless except in the SO UNLIKELY AS TO BE IMPOSSIBLE chance that the enemy will somehow find its way into your specific house and try to steal your stereo in the five hours you're in active combat.

Dude. no.

It's a missile destroyer keeping weapons prepped while they're out on patrol in unknown waters. Because both the act of patrolling and being in unknown waters are things that make you want to be prepared to get jumped. You don't disassemble all your missiles and unload all your guns in that situation, even if you don't think anybody could be sneaking up on you.

Why would they keep a functioning missile around when the fighting is happening light-hours away, in a system that is THOROUGHLY seeded with anti-Teraport systems, and all of their other missiles are already out there, deployed? That's like a minelayer keeping one around 'just in case' while in harbor after mining the entirety of the surrounding ocean.

Missiles on the ship light hours from any fighting are as useless as if they were back at Jumpstar Prime. MORE useless, because the ones at Jumpstar can still Teraport onto the OTHER side of the attacking vessels as a pincer attack.

It's leaving a bullet at home in your desk drawer while you're fighting a war on the other side of the planet. It's completely useless except in the SO UNLIKELY AS TO BE IMPOSSIBLE chance that the enemy will somehow find its way into your specific house and try to steal your stereo in the five hours you're in active combat.

Dude. no.

It's a missile destroyer keeping weapons prepped while they're out on patrol in unknown waters. Because both the act of patrolling and being in unknown waters are things that make you want to be prepared to get jumped. You don't disassemble all your missiles and unload all your guns in that situation, even if you don't think anybody could be sneaking up on you.

It's not unknown waters if it's a bay that you control and are convinced you're dealing with a little boat that will disappear the moment you decide to disappear it.

_________________If you need to use a squeegee, they're probably at least Laz-4

They were in the middle of a job escorting the science team. They were hovering above a priceless city made of PTUs, full of people who didn't like them much. None of this sounds like "time to stand down the weapons." Certainly it doesn't sound like "Friendly port."

Why would they keep a functioning missile around when the fighting is happening light-hours away, in a system that is THOROUGHLY seeded with anti-Teraport systems, and all of their other missiles are already out there, deployed? That's like a minelayer keeping one around 'just in case' while in harbor after mining the entirety of the surrounding ocean.

Missiles on the ship light hours from any fighting are as useless as if they were back at Jumpstar Prime. MORE useless, because the ones at Jumpstar can still Teraport onto the OTHER side of the attacking vessels as a pincer attack.

It's leaving a bullet at home in your desk drawer while you're fighting a war on the other side of the planet. It's completely useless except in the SO UNLIKELY AS TO BE IMPOSSIBLE chance that the enemy will somehow find its way into your specific house and try to steal your stereo in the five hours you're in active combat.

Dude. no.

It's a missile destroyer keeping weapons prepped while they're out on patrol in unknown waters. Because both the act of patrolling and being in unknown waters are things that make you want to be prepared to get jumped. You don't disassemble all your missiles and unload all your guns in that situation, even if you don't think anybody could be sneaking up on you.

It's not unknown waters if it's a bay that you control and are convinced you're dealing with a little boat that will disappear the moment you decide to disappear it.

Indeed. They weren't patrolling. All of their war material was out, warring. At that point, they were a *supply ship*. One with a lot of guns, but they were far, far in the back lines. They were the HQ hundreds of miles away from fighting. They weren't patrolling. They knew the enemy was coming, they were, what, 192 LIGHT HOURS away? Or was it minutes? If minutes, that's more than three hours for even LIGHT to reach them. And how long they would have to prepare more missiles even ASSUMING they were going to stick around and fight - *which they weren't*. *Everything* they had was out there, fighting, slowing down the attacking ships, because they were going to *cut and run* as soon as anything got in actual shooting distance.They had that system *locked. Down.*

Keeping *anything* functional in reserve at that point is stupid. They were working for themselves. They weren't getting paid for bringing ammo back. So yes, my minelayer in friendly port analogy DOES work. Just because there were spies in port doesn't make keeping a mine 'just in case' any less stupid and needlessly paranoid, because then you may as well just be prepares to blow up ANY part of ANYthing "just in case".

"oh, my house might get broken into while I'm gone, I'd better leave this SIDEWINDER MISSILE behind just in case!"

No. Kendrakirai, that's gotten to the point that I have to call it actually stupid. It's worse than if they were just in questionably friendly or unknown territory, because they KNOW that threats are being engaged. What if enemy TAD drops? They could jump in and join the fight, or at least drop terrapedos in. Need I remind you that those are a thing? What if, I dunno, somebody tries to sneak attack them? Since they know there are people interested in killing them. The distance is basically nothing for schlock-verse. This isn't home port, this isn't your house maybe getting broken into, this is an active mercenary operation where some of their deployed ships are actively under attack. Even before that it would be insane to shut down their missiles. After? Yikes.

And they are never, ever a 'supply ship.' It's a warship. Hell, it's the FLAGSHIP.

And for god's sake, stop calling it a mine. Mines are something you drop and hope another ship runs into - specialized equipment. I can only assume you're using it because it would be useless for any purpose but a suicide bomb. Breachers are the primary ship-to-ship weapon in the schlock-verse. It's not holding on to a mine, it's not unloading your MAIN WEAPONS SYSTEM.

No. Kendrakirai, that's gotten to the point that I have to call it actually stupid. It's worse than if they were just in questionably friendly or unknown territory, because they KNOW that threats are being engaged. What if enemy TAD drops? They could jump in and join the fight, or at least drop terrapedos in. Need I remind you that those are a thing? What if, I dunno, somebody tries to sneak attack them? Since they know there are people interested in killing them. The distance is basically nothing for schlock-verse. This isn't home port, this isn't your house maybe getting broken into, this is an active mercenary operation where some of their deployed ships are actively under attack. Even before that it would be insane to shut down their missiles. After? Yikes.

And they are never, ever a 'supply ship.' It's a warship. Hell, it's the FLAGSHIP.

And for god's sake, stop calling it a mine. Mines are something you drop and hope another ship runs into - specialized equipment. I can only assume you're using it because it would be useless for any purpose but a suicide bomb. Breachers are the primary ship-to-ship weapon in the schlock-verse. It's not holding on to a mine, it's not unloading your MAIN WEAPONS SYSTEM.

"what if enemy TAD drops."

They have an entire SYSTEM FULL of missiles that could capitalize on that. They were NEVER going to 'jump in and join the fight' because that's the *exact opposite of the plan*.

"what if somebody tries to sneak attack them?" how? The ONLY method was via a method they *did not know existed*. The Espees had no ships, no weapons that would even *scratch their hull*. AND they were STILL doing everything they could to minimize the chances of anything getting in.

Physics is bent like mad in Schlock, but it's never BROKEN. You can't Teraport through TAD without *exponentially* more energy than anybody had access to, so at three hour (minimum!) window is IT. THAT is how long it would take anybody to reach them, flat out, *at the speed of light*.

This is 'paranoid to the point of severe disorder'.

This is somebody keeping a tomahawk missile at the pentagon just in case somebody from Afganistan manages to fly a bomber across the ocean and *every friendly country and outpost inbetween without being seen* and they need to shoot it down.

And then being called stupid that they didn't have one handy just because their coffee maker turned out to be a transformer with a teleporter and the joint chiefs needed to fire a missile at themselves.

And the analogy of a mine is STILL apt, because they seeded the system with weapon emplacements and their missiles. There's no other terrestrial version of this but 'mine' except maybe 'booby trap'. A missile destroyer can't dump it's missiles to wait for anything to come by while it buggers off back home.